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An undedicated follower of fashion
  |  First Published: October 2014



I broke my favourite pair of sunnies today. Bolles. Frames that dated back to the early 1990s. Kids used to give me curry about how old fashioned they were and said they made me look like a blowfly with glaucoma but I just ignored the little buggers and kept wearing them until they came back into fashion. The sunglasses that is, not the kids.

So there I was, just looking through some rods in the tackle shop, tipped the head up to look on the top shelf, and bang, off they go. It seems a sad way for those glasses to end. These were the same glasses that sat for three months on a sandbank in the saltwater of the Mary River. Skipper took me under a mangrove branch when I was cast netting for some livies and knocked me overboard. The glasses came off and I couldn't find them. That was until we came back to the same gutter at low tide three months later and there they were; sitting upright on the same sandbank, waiting patiently. Upright, unscratched and not at all buried in the silt. How the tide hadn't taken them off into the deeper parts of the gutter I can't explain. It was a slightly bizarre experience, but I picked them up, spat on 'em, and cleaned 'em with some freshwater... good as new.

So it seems ironic that after going through that, plus over 20 years of constant battering while driving, boating and hunting, that they should meet their end on the floor of a suburban shop. But the end it must be. One of the arms cracked off and a lens popped out when the frame broke. They're just tired and need a rest. I know the feeling. But I feel disappointed that they didn't go in a more exciting way. Falling under the soft tyre of a four wheeler while chasing a sucker across a melon hole flat, or whipping off my head while smashing across the Wide Bay Bar. Just an anticlimactic clunk onto a concrete floor.

Some people wouldn't be worried about losing a 20 year old pair of goggles, but I've always been someone who likes to hang on to things, clothes as well as glasses. You couldn't call me trendy. Well, actually you could, but you'd be very wrong. That would be like calling me Gerald. You could call me Gerald if you wanted, but you'd be wrong there too, as that is not my name. And never has been. I can't say it never will be, because one day in the future I may very well change my name to Gerald. Who knows.

So, anyway, I'm not one for following fashions; I like comfortable clothes, and when I find comfortable clothes, I stay with them. I like to hang on to those old shirts and shorts, and luckily Stuffer often spends coin on new clothes and throws his old stuff my way. These are good quality shirts and duds. Which would make the trousers Dudd's duds, but not dudd Dudd's duds. Mostly by the time Stuffer throws them my way, they're no longer trendy, but as I mentioned, that's no drama to me. I end up with quite a few. More than a few actually. Last Dudd's trip Stuffer looked at me before a session at Turkey and commented that if I had only been wearing his jocks, I would be dressed completely in his old gear. I didn't tell him about his old jocks I was wearing, that would have just made him smug. A smug bugger. Or maybe I should say it would make him even smugger. An even smugger bugger.

So I've resigned to not having those old goggles hanging around any more. It's a shame but life goes on. I'll get over it...especially if I can get a discarded pair from someone. I’ll have to check the pockets in the stuff Stuffer is sending over this week. Never know your luck.

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